Castles in the Sky
by spoke
Summary: Crossover, Au. Zexion and Rajura of Samurai Troopers are reincarnated as university students. Which would all be well and good, but villains have a way of dying with unfinished business.


**Castles in the Sky **

A Ronin Warriors/Kingdom Hearts crossover. Because I could! Done using a prompt list from, but totally defying the spirit of, 1sentence on livejournal.

Disclaimer - I own nothing except my own insanity? It smirks a lot, I should be more worried about that.

**Lock -** They were searching for the same book, hidden away among the mustiest tomes the University's library had to offer; Jiro found himself searching the stranger's face from the corners of his eyes, wary of a familiarity that never came.

**Unknown -** They have half the same classes, yet Jiro had never noticed until the days after their first meeting, when the younger man's presence plucked his attention as if vibrating the strings of a spider's web.

**Forgotten** - The stranger walks up behind him one day, and it strikes him that he's being careful to make noise. Which is why he doesn't leave when that voice asks him oh so softly what it is he's seeing.

He doesn't know why he lets him see it, the leafless oaks replaced by trees he's never seen in this life, light pink petals drifting down in a wind that isn't there to land in front of a young man with dark red hair and eyes that shift blue green in the light. The fact that the younger man sits quietly beside him and studies it instead of flinching, well.

Perhaps he isn't as alone as he'd believed.

**Wings** - The idea that might be able to find out what their dreams mean and why they both have this strange ability is intoxicating.

**Dream** - There's an energy that builds between them when they're researching that makes Jiro speak in terms of strategy and Ienzo of science; it's the first hint of discord between them, though neither acknowledges it as such.

**Ice** - By the time he followed Jiro out of the restaurant, fresh snow was layering itself down through the bitter cold. He's standing there with snow in his hair only visible because it's glistening. It's as if he hasn't moved since reaching the sidewalk, and Ienzo has no doubt as to why.

He looks across the road into dark, smirking eyes that reflect the snow and Jiro, but little else even when Ienzo steps between them to break the spell. A low and jagged rumble that makes him think of a dog laughing is the stranger's only response.

Until Jiro looks down at him. The stranger's growl is swallowed by the rev of his motorcycle starting. but Ienzo doesn't even turn to see him leave; what matters is the tension easing out of his friend.

**Dance** - He was leaning over a railing as Ienzo passed by, and when he looked up he saw sunlight drifting through the short spikes of his hair without ever touching his eyes. Neither did the smile he made when he called down, "You left this in class."

He watches as the blonde makes his way down and tries to place the nagging sense of familiarity, but all he feels is a vivid conviction that he doesn't like the stranger. He doesn't like the way he's prattling on, all smiling banalities and fluff while his eyes watch Ienzo for some kind of reaction he isn't getting.

It only occurs to him after he finally extricates himself from the conversation that the other boy was trying to keep him there; and he doesn't look back, because he knows he'll still be standing there watching. He has a sickening feeling at the back of his mind that he should know who that was, and who he'll be reporting the whole conversation to.

**Formal** - He speaks with a slightly contemptful formality that has Jiro on edge and Ienzo all rapt attention.

**Whisper **- "Is it truly so difficult to accept?" the voice of their new professor teased into Ienzo's mind, and he shivered but kept reading, ignoring the voice.

**Silence** - The rustle of paper as Ienzo skims through the books is so constant that its abrupt absence drags Jiro out of his own research. He leans back, glaring at his latest book in disgust. "We need a change of pace. You want to get out of here?"

**View** - "From up here, I thought it would look like a fairy tale. All that mist should make it look clean. Shouldn't it?" Ienzo mutters, turning to look at him with pained frustration in his eyes.

"What we need is a change of scenery." Jiro replies, and ignores the way Ienzo tenses suspiciously before letting himself be led away from town.

The path he chooses takes them up into the hills, where the air is clearer and the morning sunlight is strangely heavy. Ienzo is smiling now, and that makes it easy to resist the tug at the back of his mind. He doesn't want to trace those symbols into the air anyway; they might take on shape and power in this light.

**Talent **- Not long after their trip into the hills, Ienzo comes into the library looking shaky. When Jiro tries to find out what's wrong, he replies with one of his annoying crypticisms - something about having too much time on his hands.

**Hurricane **- He'd never expected to see a fight break out among the girls going to campus - and even if he'd expected that, Ienzo's smirking laughter when he sees the vicious little blonde who's winning would have shocked him speechless.

***

**Hero** - Their first sign that the general atmosphere of the club was changing was the new bouncer, a craggy mountain of a man who always lets them in with a polite nod to Ienzo.

**Music** - Ienzo nearly chokes on his drink when a chance drop in the club's noise lets them hear the new singer; a voice of rough velvet caressing lyrics of darkness and the ending of worlds.

**Drink** - The new bartender is a bubbling fountain of energy and noise, and Jiro couldn't understand why Ienzo didn't like him until he pointed out the shadowed depths in his eyes.

**Cover** - As soon as he's sure Jiro isn't listening, he hisses at Demyx, "Don't you have class tomorrow?"

Demyx only smirks as he continues mixing drinks. "Don't _you_?" He glances up without quite looking away from the drinks, and laughs softly at Ienzo's reaction. "Relax, _Zexion_. The management doesn't care. And you wouldn't rat a guy out, would you?"

He isn't even going to dignify that with a response. He doesn't want to know who the management is now. "Just give us our damn drinks then."

"Awww. Not until they're done!" he sing-songs, and Ienzo tenses when the Nocturne's eyes flicker to Jiro.

**Gravity** - Sensing that they were being watched was one thing. It happened so often now. But searching the bar, and then the crowd, and finally discovering that watcher leaning against the ceiling as casually as if it were a wall was something else entirely.

Jiro lets himself savor the oddest pang of jealousy before drawing Ienzo's attention to him. Or trying to - for all his initial contempt for the new bartender, he's deep in conversation with him now. The music of the new singer drifts into it as well, and Jiro feels as if he is intruding on some bizarre three way conversation.

When he does manage to break in, Ienzo glances up for only a moment before smirking. He receives the briefest wave and a wink from one sharp golden eye before the stranger turns back to watching the crowd, and Ienzo shakes his head dismissively, glittered tresses flying.

"He won't fall."

As if that was what had Jiro worried.

**Temptation** - Jiro's skin crawls as Ienzo's eyes meet those of the singer. That voice might be pleasant, but the hair makes him think of Medusa and the eyes are whispering dangerously, scenting the air between them with promises of arcane knowledge.

It makes him uncomfortable, makes him feel weirdly competitive. He should be the one weaving seductions, he could do a better job of it - for a moment he wishes he could try, and then he remembers he can't sing all that well anyway. But the feeling that he wants to try continues until he starts to feel a little ill and tries to stand up.

The table shakes as he catches himself on it, breaking Ienzo's concentration on the singer - and he must have imagined the glint of rage focused on him as they started to leave. He couldn't really have noticed him across that crowd, any more than he could've been singing to Ienzo in the first place.

Though he feels like there's something _wrong_ with that thought...

**Fire** - He seems to be dancing, though he's only making his way through the crowd; but Ienzo betrays no appreciation of his beauty. His eyes are full of a hatred that burns more fiercely than the man's hair. But it's easy to avoid him, and he doesn't seem to notice them at all.

Too easy not to care now, with a tingling haze moving through his blood like the crawling of a thousand little spiders.

**Midnight** - They had never been out this late before, and they should have gone straight home. But the drinks are shifting in their blood, and Ienzo is wired and tense and won't talk about the people in the club. He's really getting sick of the way Ienzo avoids the whole subject, especially since it feels like they're surrounded by people from his past lately.

Jiro's barely seen anyone.

Stupid, he tells himself as they wander through the streets. He's not sure he really wants to see them, not sure it wouldn't make things worse. But he keeps pressing, wanting to know, until this horrible flowery scent reaches them and Ienzo freezes.

Pink hair of all things, and dark brown eyes. This is all Jiro notices at first, through the haze, and he can't really hear what the man is saying.

What really gets his attention is the knife.

**Strength** - Countless scuffles over books they had both wanted have given no hint that Jiro was this much stronger than Ienzo; but the fact remains that he cannot move Jiro's arm.

**Fall **- "Turn around and get out of here, Ienzo." Jiro murmurs, and Ienzo steps back with no intention of leaving.

**Body** - Ienzo remains perfectly silent as Jiro kills the man, trusting that the magic he had tried to deny would now keep him unnoticed while he observed the blood thirsty streak his ally had been hiding.

**Mask** - Of what he has seen and what he suspects, Ienzo is careful to give no sign.

***

**Memory** - His head rose from the table in a start that drove all thought of dreams from Ienzo's mind; and he hissed through the pain in his eyes, "His name was Rajura."

**Hope** - It's a cruel mockery, the day he comes into the library to find Shuten waiting for him with a darkness in his eyes that Jiro remembers him losing before the end. The seductive tones of his mockery haven't changed, either. "If I could come back, you could."

"Why would you want to?" he chokes out, uncertain how else to respond.

His eyes narrow as if he suspects something, which is no more than what Jiro's feeling himself and only feeds the fear that this is someone else's illusion. "Mmmm. I suppose you'll just have to come and find out."

Anubis was easily cruel enough to do something like this...

**Talk -** He comes into the library to find another student talking to Jiro, and flinches for the briefest moment before he realizes it's too dark a shade of red for Axel's hair. So he hides himself in a cloak of light, and listens to them quietly until the redhead leaves, and does not mention having seen him when he comes to sit by Jiro. But he watches him carefully the rest of that day, and thinks he sees the shadow of an old pain new awakened.

It isn't until he's walking through the campus to head home that he remembers a day almost a year ago, and that first illusion Jiro shared with him.

**Search** - The next day he stops reading as soon as Ienzo sits down. "If it was in any of these books," he half muttered as he pinched the bridge of his nose, "Don't you think we'd have found it by now?"

"I don't know, Jiro. I just... don't want to give up." he replies, and matches the twisted smirk his friend gives him with one of his own.

**Candle **- The air feels strange when he comes into the room, and when he lets his vision shift he finds it traced with thin white lines of power. It's somewhat unnerving.

It becomes dramatically more so when he sees Jiro staring into a candle's lame, the shell of something almost insectile shimmering around him. For a moment, something familiar wakes in Ienzo, something that observes and calculates and makes it difficult to force himself to shake Jiro out of the trance.

It twists away in the panic as he fails to respond, and Ienzo shakes him harder. When he does come out of it and the air around them is abruptly clear, for a moment there's a faint red gleam to his eyes as he glares over his shoulder.

**Breathe** - Ienzo's laughter at the new chemistry professor's sarcasm is met with a knowing smirk and a glint of darkness in frigid green eyes.

**Box** - They had sought out the secluded corner surrounded by towering shelves in order to feel secure from the prying eyes of casual visitors to the library; but the arrival of a stern man looking for a book in Ienzo's possession left them feeling trapped.

**Lies** - It actually hurt a little to think he had believed Ienzo would avoid their professor; though he had to admit what he'd overhead of the conversation had a certain bleak allure.

**Laugh **- She was standing at the corner of an intersection on his way to campus, leaves falling around her thickly and with a couple in her hair. In the slight wind, with her white dress and the odd lighting, she might almost have been a ghost.

"They said I should meet you." The girl told him, and he might have betrayed a flicker of recognition as his mind supplied a name and powers.

'Namine. Capable of altering memories, in certain circles. But not mine.'

"Why do you think they told you this?" he asked, and felt a flicker of unaccustomed vivid pride/memory of Zexion as he saw her eyes widen.

She faded without answering.

**Forever** - It isn't long after Namine that he catches a glimpse of Roxas out of the corner of his eye. He watches without turning as the youngest traitor wanders down the street, all too clearly searching, and he finds himself hoping that he never finds her.

**Overwhelmed **- He's soaked through from the rain, though the heat doesn't seem any less for it. Scanning the riverside, he dismisses the huddled figures at first, certain none of them is the source of the scent he's been following. Then one of them rises, slowly turning to look at him as he does, and the madness in his eyes leaves no trace of doubt behind it.

The other scent, made deceptively faint by the heavy poisonous reek he's been following, is Jiro's.

**Silk** - The voice is a low and malevolent hiss, commanding and volatile all at once. It's such a vivid contrast to Jiro's smooth tones that it's unpleasant to listen to them speaking.

At least, he tells himself that. It sounds so much better than admitting he feels jealous would.

**Run** - "_Leave_, Jiro." he hisses, and there's a finality to it that he's never heard before. "They're waiting for you."

**Promise** - "I'm not leaving." he says, and though Ienzo suspects he hears an unspoken 'yet', he also knows Jiro means it right now.

**Ring** - There's a music of temple bells in his dreams lately, and he thinks it might be Kaos trying to reach them. Wherever they are. Wherever he is. But the dreams always end with him turning to see Shuten, and that drives all the bemused thoughts of what's happened to the shakujo out of his mind.

If they went any farther, he might not want to wake up.

***

**Sacred** - The white castle in the city of his dreams rises before him like some fantastic illusion, one he is drawn to with every fiber of his being; except for the thought which looks back into the darkness for Jiro and finds nothing but quivering Shadows caught in the remains of tattered web.

**Red **- The moon's light was tinted the color of blood, and rage entered every living thing touched by its light. Swept away on the tides of its madness, they acted without thought and were lost to the lives they had known.

All but those whose lives were its madness.

He moves through the streets in a haze of unaccustomed reality, trying to follow the silver threads of another dreamer to their source. Despite the shifting patterns of perception and matter, there was no question that he would find him - the question was, what would he find?

**Fever **- When he was ducking down alleys to avoid people who only looked familiar, or helping with the investigations into past-life memories with a frightening intensity, Jiro felt oddly at ease; it was the new and feverish dream-state that overtook Ienzo that made him afraid they'd gotten in too deep.

**World** - "But even if that's so, why would we all be drawn to this one?" he asks quietly.

"Why wouldn't we be? Did _you_ do anything in the last life to deserve better?" Ienzo snaps bitterly.

What can he say to that, one traitor of a world to another?

**Eclipse** - The berserker's rage is waxing in his eyes, and Ienzo knows it will tear through all Jiro's delicate webs without ever seeing they existed. "Just stay back. _Please_." he hisses, and sees Jiro shaking his head. But he isn't moving to stand between them this time, and that's all Ienzo wants at this point.

Just to keep Jiro out of this, because whatever he was in the last life he does not mean to sacrifice his friend in this one.

**Cold** - The hand that settled on the table before him had more impact in its gentleness than if he'd slammed it down. He looked up into moon-maddened eyes and found that he could not move. "If you want answers you will have to come to us, Schemer. All the illusions in the world cannot bring you truth."

He straightened, slipping away from Ienzo. Surely not as slowly as it seemed. Time was never in Saix's grasp, he reminds himself as the other inches away. 'But perception was always in mine.' his mind whispers, treacherously.

Pale blue hair shifts as Saix tilts his head, quizzical expression only half visible because Ienzo refuses to make eye contact again. He can still _feel_ the smirk when Saix speaks, a chill running through him at his satisfied tone. "We will await the pleasure of your company."

**Wait** - Jiro snaps at him as soon as he turns around. "You can't just leave!"

He would have snapped back, could have so easily - except there's a sincerity in the other's eyes that makes him wince, that catches on all kinds of memories in the back of his mind. Ienzo remembering Zexion remembering Ienzo makes him reel for a moment, and when he comes to Jiro is holding his shoulders.

"They'll destroy you." he whispers.

He reaches for something to get Jiro away from him, because their respective 'families' might well tear each other apart if it comes to this. Treacherous memories for once come to his aid as the image of the nameless redhead surfaces."Will that stop you if _he_ comes back?"

He's perversely proud of himself for saying nothing as Jiro walks away.

**Farewells** - He wanders the streets in a blind rage, and wonders if it would've been better if they'd said goodbye properly.

**Journey** - Turning a corner, he sees a shock of red that is not part of the haze across his vision; and farewells are suddenly the last thing on his mind.

**Highway **- Riding a motorcycle comes to him much easier than he thought it would.


End file.
